Relationship of Shipping

Evaluate the relationship between shopping, tourism and entertainment.

Introduction

A female tourist plans to go to Hawaii to visit the Volcano National Park. For this tourist an essential trip to the natural site while on holiday was interrupted briefly by an undesirable side-trip to a shopping mall in Hawaii. This emphasizes the depth and breadth of relationships between tourism, entertainment, and shopping.

Due to its economic, social and psychological benefits, creation of comfortable yet exciting shopping districts in order to induce customer desire to visit and extend their stay has become an important concern to authorities at tourist destinations (Jones, 1999; Lin, 2004; Yuksel, 2004). People may travel for entertainment or shopping purely before. However, people right now tend to mix them up together, take shopping as a kind of entertainment. And it seems that shopping and entertainment is tightly binding each other in the tourism industry.

In this essay, we are going to evaluate the close relationship between shopping and entertainment and how the reaction of this combination contribution to the tourism industry.

Entertainment, Shopping, and Tourism

Entertainment is one of the dimensions of tourism which is the driver of many tourist journeys. It can be like the tourism developments of all sizes from Disney World, Universal Studios, Las Vegas to local community special Events and Festivals such as the Bloomsday Road Race in Spokane, Washington. People look for entertainment for relaxation and escaping the reality. They seek entertainment from different sources, such as TV shows, visiting exhibitions, theme parks, and attractions in different places or countries, etc.

Attractions are an extremely important part of the tourism industry and are the driver for much tourism having taken place. According to (Swarbrooke, 1995) entertainment is 'the most important component in the tourism system. They are the main motivators for tourist trips and are the core of the tourism product. Without entertainment there would be no need for other tourism services. Indeed tourism as such would not exist if it were not for entertainment'.

In order to evaluate the relationship between shopping, tourism and entertainment, the essay would break into parts. First of all, understand how shopping contribute to tourism industry and how to motivate tourists to become shoppers. After that, a discussion on four types of shopping group which divided based on the importance the respondents gave to "opportunities to shop" as a factor in their choice of a region as a vocational destination.

According to the Tourism Shopping Implementation Committee Report (1990) defines tourism shopping as the expenditure on goods purchased by international visitors, either for consumption or for export but not including expenditure on food, drink or grocery items. Shopping is a task in which a customer searches for an intended item, receives an intended service, or gathers useful information.

Tourism is defined as a collection of activities, services and industries that delivers a travel experience, including transportation, accommodation, eating and drinking establishments, retail shops, entertainment venues, activities and other hospitality services provided for individuals or group traveling away from home.

Mathieson and Wall(1982) created a good working definition of tourism is "the sum of the phenomena and relationships arising from the interaction of tourists, business suppliers, host government and host communities in the process of attracting and hosting these tourists and other visitors.

Tourism consists of many leisure activities. But Jansen-Verbeke (1991) considered the tour without shopping activities as an incomplete travel experience. From a leisure destination, tourists seek for different experiences. The four types of experiences that they found are entertainment, education, escapist, and aesthetic. One trend is towards the use of artificially, technologically - enhanced destinations such as theme parks, cruises and resorts. Examples here include Las Vegas and the Carnival Cruise Line.

Robinson (2008) stated that there are some motivates for tourists to choose the destination; tourist interest (such as shopping preference), Culture (such as watching local arts and crafts), natural and built heritage (such as visiting museums), urban entertainment (such as visiting clubs and bars), and active outdoor pursuits (such as skiing, swimming, and hiking). However, the tourists will not only experience the culture of the destination as an example, they may take shopping as a kind of entertainment while they are enjoying themselves very much when buying goods in a tourist destination (Ko, 2004).

Nowadays, it is almost a given that most tourist activity is inextricably linked to some form of shopping, through food and drink, souvenir purchases or through activity choices, for examples, there are increasing numbers of brand shops nearby the casinos in the Las Vegas and Macau, producing local canned food as souvenirs, or promoting particular brands in the destination (Turley & Milliman, 2000).

Shopping is probably one of the easiest and best means of experiencing the uniqueness of native tourism (Hsieh & Chang, in Press). Shopping provides tourists with an opportunity to interact with people and broaden their experiences in dealing with both goods and people (Stobart, 1998 cf. Hsieh and Chang, In Press, p. 3). The desire and necessity for shopping could motivate a tourist to travel (Timothy & Butler, 1995). This argument is based on the elements of relaxation, escaping from the mundane and accepting a challenge that is associated with shopping (Law & Au, 2000).

Shopping is among the most common and enjoyable activities under-taken by people on holiday and, in many cases, it provides a major attraction and basic motivation for travel. More efficient transportation systems, increased technology, and widespread use of credit cards with the recent growth, people have been able to travel further.

According to Bulter (1991), he mentioned that the relationships between shopping and tourism could be divided into two categories. The first is where the primary purpose of the tourist trip is to shop. The second is where shopping is done as a secondary activity during a trip which might be motivated primarily by other entertainments other than shopping (e.g. Casino-tourism, ecotourism, etc.).

Content

Shopping VS Tourism

Shopping is one of the most pervasive leisure activities engaged